Bleached Aliens
by Alex McM
Summary: Rukia Kuchiki, lone survivor of the terror on-board the Nostromo, thought her nightmare was over. She was wrong. When contact with a colony on LV-246 is lost Rukia is sent in to investigate alongside a squad of heavily armed marines. But the only thing waiting for them out there is the most fearsome creature to have ever lived- the xenomorph! And this time there's more than one!
1. Chapter 1

Nothing. Resolute emptiness. A dark black sheet wrapped cold around the vast expanse of space. Amidst this darkness, floating as a leaf upon the flowing stream was a cage of steel; a thing of metal and machinery in the otherworldly void. Incongruous. Alone.

A ship.

Cryostatic silence.

A layer of frost upon every square inch of interior surface, glistening as glaciers in the pale reflected light of distant solar eruptions. Cryotubes sealed shut, housing a snow white beauty. Her sleeping face one of serene calm. Mystifying, considering the untold nightmares inscribed beneath her heavy eyelids. Nonetheless, she slept a deep sleep, oblivious in the still waters of flash-frozen slumber.

Oblivious to flashing lights upon the surface of her cryo-tube, as if congealing from the icy film, 'Proximity Alert' blinking on and off rhythmically.

Oblivious to the approaching mass outside. Another ship, towering over the tiny escape pod as it drew closer. The two drifted lazily toward each other, like parent and child, reunited with a grating clang and thud.

Still the girl dreamt of sweet nothings, unaware of anything bar her unconscious desires made flesh within her mind. She dreamt nothing of the mechanical arm swaying down into view outside the door. dreamt nothing of the electronic hiss as a welders torch wielded by a steel ghost carved away at the thick layers of metal separating each ship; the blistering sparks of flame spat across the frozen room, thawing out the encrusted icy layers coating the room within.

When at last the door was welded through, the sheered off partition clattered to the floor, loud enough to stir any sleeping residents.

She did not stir a muscle.

More mechanical buzzing, like insect swarms beyond the escape pod's walls. Another robotic contraption entered, hovering in like a swollen fly over a carcass; skeletal, yet inorganic the grey machine turned to face the wall to one side, spewing a dull white scanning light across to the far wall. With a precision slowness it swung lazily from one side to the other and back again.

Scan complete.

The girl still slept.

Next in the parade of unwarranted intruders, men in faded green atmosphere suits, automatic breathers unnervingly rasping in the cramped space of the pod. Two of them, glancing at each other through tinted visors so dark one's face could not be discerned even from a hairs breadth away. The leader studied the closest cryo tube, running a thick gloved hand over the crystallized ice, shattering like glass and dispersing around his feet. Beneath his hand and through plated glass he caught a glimpse of the frozen angel, ethereally perfect in her peaceful sleep. And perched comfortably upon her lap, a black ball of fur tucked in a tight ball.

Beneath the man's visor, a bewildered expression soon painted itself upon his face as he held his scanner over the glass coffin.

"All reishi readings are green. Looks like she's alive..." The words barely registered, even as he spoke them. But as reality caught up with his wheezing breaths he removed his mask and stared down at the dreaming beauty.

"There goes our salvage, guys," he announced, his words directed at the anxious others crowded around the entry to the pod. Even with their faces hidden he could see their shoulders slump. But as masks were removed the concrete evidence of their dismay lay before him.

Still in disbelief, all eyes fell upon the girl in the cryotube.

Cryostatic silence. Blissful comatose relaxation.

Even knowing full well they would not wake her, they dared not make a sound.

* * *

Familiar sterile white, the same blank slate walls she had grown accustomed to on the Nostromo. She took a deep breath and took in the scene with all her senses. Waves of pain stabbed sharp across her body, keeping her down in the bed which unsurprisingly was a matching white. Outside her window she could see the floating orb known as Earth, an expansive ball painted in hues of deep blue and green and brown and white. She squinted at the white streak clouds that stretched across it's surface and made out the shapes of nations below.

The footsteps of another brought her back from her reverie. Only then did she truly notice the ghostly silent machinery gathered around like mourners over a grave. The tall, slender nurse, hair braided down her front in a thick glistening black rope, strolled forward and toyed with the control panel above the bed.

"How are you today?" she asked in the gentle manner of a mother to child.

The bed-ridden girl scrunched up her face and groaned, "Terrible..."

"Well, you're better than yesterday at the very least," the nurse smiled warmly.

The girl glanced around as she slowly sat up. Despite the familiar stale white on every single surface she still couldn't finger any of it to a familiar place. Perplexed, she asked the nurse "Where am I?", the words rolling off her tongue softly, more breathed than spoken.

"You are safe," the nurse explained, still fussing around with the array of machinery around them. "This is Senkaimon Station, you've been here for several days. You were in quite a state at first, but I see you are fine now."

The girl stared, the words only half registering in her mind, slowly seeping in like rainwater through cracked dirt. After a moment she realized her jaw had dropped at some point during the explanation. With a scattered gaze she glanced towards the door across from the bed and noticed another person in its shadow.

The nurse noticed as well and smiled her sun-warm smile, "It appears you have a visitor."

The door slid open and man entered, clad in a black and white suit. The first thing the girl noticed was his smile; wide enough to consume his face entirely. The curved line of his smile was surely not genuine, but somehow she found herself at ease regardless. Tiny eyes stared back at her as his shoes clacked on the white tiled floor. As he neared, she noticed a black ball of fur tucked under his arm.

The girl's face lit up in an instant.

"Yoruichi?! Hey! Come here, come here!"

The man, whose smile had grown even larger upon approaching, slowly handed over the cat before quickly straightening up. He watched on with a fond gaze as the girl nuzzled the cat and whispered sweet nothings to it, more for herself than her furry companion.

With a slight giggle, the girl raised the cat up to eye level and looked into its beady yellow eyes. "How are you, you stupid cat? Huh? Where have you been?"

"I guess you two have met, then?" the man's voice interjected. Suddenly he was sitting beside her bed, straddling the chair which was faced the wrong way around. She had never even noticed him sit down, such was her joy upon meeting Yoruichi.

The man's awkward smile remained as strong as ever under the pressure of her inquisitive stare.

"Hmm. My name is Ichimaru Gin, I work for the Gotei 13; but don't let it bother you, I'm actually a very nice man." No doubt it was intended as a joke, but the girl did not laugh, nor even smile. She merely stared ever into those small black eyes of his.

Despite the tension he continued utterly unfazed. "I must say it's good to see that you're feeling better. The doctors say those lazy bones of yours are simply a side effect of such an unusually long hypersleep...or, you know, something like that."

Once again, Gin attempted to inject some humor into his words but the effect was lost entirely to the bewildered girl.

"What? What do you mean?" she asked, leaning forward expectantly. "How long was I out there?"

Gin's eyes shifted across the room as if searching for the answers. "I guess that means nobody told you then?" he asked, his smile shrinking back to a more human level.

She looked him straight in the eye and shook her head, "No. _But_, I don't recognize this place at all."

Gin hummed a low note to himself, "Hmm, yes. Well you see, this may come as quite a shock to you. After all, you were out there for a very long time and-"

"How long was I out there?" she pressed, cutting off Gin and his wildly flailing hands. "Please?"

His smile vanished, a thin straight line cutting through his face. All emotion drained from his gaunt pale face.

"57 years," he spat the words out as bluntly as possible.

The answer came as such a surprise the girl unwittingly let out a slight giggle. Gin seemed unfazed at the fact that the only time she had laughed was when he had finally said something serious.

The girl shook her head in disbelief, "What?"

"You were out there for 57 years," Gin reaffirmed, and this time there was no laughter. "You see, why ever you were sent adrift, you managed to pass right through our sights and went out into the darkness. It was a stroke of luck that a deep salvage crew found you, one in a thousand I dare say. Truly you are very lucky to be alive." His smile grew abnormally wide again, "You could just as easily have been drifting out there forever..."

Gin continued speaking, but the girl was no longer paying attention. She stared down at her hands, dumbfounded, unable to comprehend the reality of the situation. The reality which sounded like make-believe. ...But she knew from experience that the stuff of dreams and nightmares were more real than she had ever imagined.

Nightmares especially...

Without warning Yoruichi hissed, shackles raising and fangs bared. She struggled to escape the girl's grasp and leaped from her lap into the corner of the room, still hissing venomously at her friend. The girl felt a sudden weight in her chest, unlike anything she had felt before. It pressed hard against her lungs, forcing air out in a ragged gasp. Leaning forward she let out a groan of pain as a sensation of crawling beetles beneath her flesh took hold.

Gin's eyes widened.

"Are you alright?"

She couldn't respond. She screamed wordlessly, terrified by the unwelcome feeling of something squirming about beneath her flesh. She grasped her stomach and howled as Gin called for help. She heard shouting voices and felt hands hold her down but all she could focus on was the writhing beneath her flesh. Something that should not be there. Something that should not exist at all.

Not after what happened back then...

The girl collapsed against the backrest, breathing heavily, snarling at those who stood around her, begging for death.

_"__Kill me!" _she strained, a primal fear somehow making it past the agony that besot her body, _"Kill me!"_

She could feel her organs rearrange themselves as something slid about inside her, crawling about aimlessly in search of an exit. She felt it prod experimentally at her stomach and push upward with all its strength. Unsure whether it was dream or reality she rolled up her shirt and stared mortified at the rising mound beneath her flesh. The mold of a rounded head pushing against her inside, desperate to break free into the stagnant air.

She cried out once more just as her stomach tore open and her unwanted child reared its ugly, white head to greet its mother. With blood-spattered fangs the bald child smiled and she screamed as she had never screamed before.

* * *

She panted heavily as she bolted upright, her hands clammy and sweat dripping from her forehead down the frock of hair that fell over her face. Her heart took a moment to catch up with her, still beating a steady tattoo against her chest. Her hands (one of which was pressed up against her chest) as well took a moment to stop shacking from adrenaline.

___It was just a dream_, Rukia though to herself, her mouth still needed time to collect itself. ___No, a nightmare..._

"Another bad dream, Miss Kuchiki?" the nurse said, her voice gentle and motherly, "Would you like something to help you sleep better?"

"No," Rukia answered softly, shaking her head before lying back on her bed, "I've slept enough..."

"Very well, call me if you need anything." And with that the nurse left, her long braid swishing as she turned.

Once Rukia was alone she turned and saw Yoruichi resting beside her. She reached out and scratched the black cat behind her ears.

"It's OK girl," she whispered, more to herself than the cat, "it's alright now.

_"____It's over__.____"_


	2. Chapter 2

A tropical paradise. Luscious rainforests serenaded by the song of unseen birds. Clear crystalline waters sparkling in morning sun. Rukia stared blankly out at the beautiful scene. To say she was indifferent could not be further from the truth.

With a sigh Rukia seized a small remote from beside her on the bench and pressed a button. In a flash the rainforest disappeared, the mirage vanishing upon the screen; it wasn't real. The same could be said for her dreams the night before; it wasn't real.

So she told her self, over and over, if only to make the trembling stop.

Distracted from the scene around her, life went on as usual. Beyond the plate glass window behind her people strolled past and chatted casually, unaware of the nightmares she had been put through. For some time she waited alone out in the artificial wilderness until the door opened and the familiar face of Ichimaru Gin emerged, all smiles as usual.

"I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting," he said with his usual air of calm, "traffic was a bitch this morning."

The words flew past Rukia without register. "Have you heard anything about my daughter?" she asked. The question caused her voice to creak, the inevitable trepidation of the unknown seeding doubt in her mind.

Gin averted his gaze for the briefest moment before glancing at her once more. "I think you should worry more about the hearing right now. We don't have much time." Without even bothering to hear her protests he continued on, "Now I've looked over your files; you should be fine as long as you stick with it. Remember, there are a lot of heavyweights in there..."

Gin rattled off meaningless titles while Rukia glared. After humoring him for a short time she cut him off and stepped forward to ask once again, "Have you heard anything about my daughter?" Her voice was firm the second time, her irritation at being ignored working to steel herself.

The man's smile faltered and his voice failed at the sudden interruption. With a shaky grin he nodded his assent. "Yes. Well, we found a few little pieces of information. Why don't we sit down?" he gestured to the bench. "Honestly I wanted to wait until after your inquest, but..." he rolled his eyes and fumbled through the papers in his suitcase. After finding several crumpled sheets he dragged them out and read aloud, "Hisana Kuchiki, age sixty-seven. At least...that was how old she was when she died. That was two years ago, the cause of death was listed as 'illness'. I am sorry, truly."

Rukia slowly took the papers from his hands and stared at the image of her beloved daughter, aged beyond recognition yet still looking every bit as beautiful as she remembered her. She gazed down with fond eyes and stroked the face smiling back at her.

"Hisana..."

Gin frowned, watching as Rukia's shoulder slumped and her eyes grew cloudy.

"I promised her... *sniff!*, I promised her I would be home for her birthday..."

_Her eleventh birthday..._

She bowed her head and sobbed.

* * *

Tessai smiled up on the screen. A file photo. Following close behind was Urahara. More photographs of the Nostromo crew, long gone. Rukia watched them drift away and returned her attention to the board.

"This is ridiculous," she groaned. "We've been here for over two and a half hours; how many more times do you want me to repeat the same story?"

Silver haired, dead eyed board members stared at her without the slightest hint of remorse. A man at the head of the table leaned forward and gestured for her to be seated. Only realizing she had rose out of anger, Rukia calmly sat down.

"Look at this from our perspective," the man asked, his voice a deep as the oceans on the Earth they had long since abandoned. "You openly admit to detonating the self destruct sequence on one of our ships; a very expensive piece of equipment."

"Forty-two million adjusted dollars, excluding the payload," one of the other members explained.

The man at the head of the table nodded and glanced back at Rukia. Eyes like stone, shoulders stiff. He continued. "The onboard recordings of your lifeboat do support _some_ of your claims; for reasons unknown the Nostromo did land on LV-426, an as yet unsurveyed planet at the time. The ship then took off and resumed it course, only to be set for self-destruct, by you, for further reasons unknown."

"It was not 'reasons unknown'!" Rukia snapped. "We set down there, by _company orders_," she spat the words as if they were poison, "to pick up this thing and it destroyed my crew!" Seeing no looks of sympathy on their faces she sighed and added, "As well as you expensive ship..."

The head member remained unconvinced, clasping leathery hands together upon the desk. "The analysis crew, which analysed your life-craft centimeter by centimeter found no trace of evidence of this alleged creature you found."

Rukia's eyes flared with anger, "I should hope so; I blew the damn thing out of the airlock!" She noticed she was on her feet again. Turning back to the screen she saw Inoue staring back at her with a gleaming smile. She tried her best to return it, even if it was just an image.

"Are there any hostile organisms like this on LV-426?" one of the other members asked, looking across the table to an elderly woman smoking a cigar. She shook her head adamantly before letting out a thick plume of smoke from between her crinkled lips.

"No, it's a rock. No indigenous life whatsoever."

Rukia turned back and clenched her fists. "Did IQ's drop sharply while I was away or something? I already told you that thing wasn't indigenous! It came from a derelict spacecraft, an alien ship! It wasn't from there at all! Do you understand?" She glared at the assembled board members, silently accusing each and every one of them for her ill-fated mission. "We homed in on their emergency beacon-"

"And found a life form that has never been recorded even once on over 300 surveyed planets." The old woman nodded condescendingly and read from the report before her. "'A creature that gestates inside a living host'."

Rukia nodded.

"These are your words?"

"Yes."

"And...'Has corrosive acid as blood'."

"That's right."

The board members exchanged dubious glances. They had done the very same quite a few times in the last two and a half hours.

With a sigh Rukia seated herself and looked around, realizing none were on her side. "Look I know where this is going, but you've got to believe me. These monsters really exist!"

"That will do Officer Kuchiki. Thank you."

"Wait, you have to believe me!"

The head board member raised his hands but it had no effect.

"Hanatarou, my crew member! He said he saw thousands of eggs there!"

"I said that will be all!" he roared.

Unable to resist getting flustered, Rukia's cheeks burned as she threw her papers at the board. "It is not all! If one of those things gets down here then it will be all! All of this garbage you think is important...You can kiss it all goodbye!"

Silence befell the room and all stared at Rukia, bar Gin who was rolling his eyes and trying his best to look the other way.

The head board member stared straight through her as he gave his judgement.

"It is the finding of this court inquiry that Warrant Officer Rukia Kuchiki has acted on questionable judgement and is no longer capable of holding an ICC license as a commercial flight officer."

Rukia's jaw quivered but no words managed to escape. She knew the very words he as about to say even before his lips moved.

"Your license is hereby suspended indefinitely. There will be no criminal charges held against you at this time, and you will be released on you own recognizance and placed in six months of psychometric probation which will include monthly assessment by an ICC psychiatric technician.

"These proceedings are now closed."

Rukia sank back as the group made their leave, not even bothering to acknowledge Gin as he approached her with a pained smirk. "Well now, that could have gone a little better..."

Ignoring him and his protests completely Rukia made for the door to cut off the board members, crying out their name as she neared them.

"Wait, Ishida-san! Why don't you check out LV-426 and prove me wrong!"

Ishida Ryuken stopped and smiled a smile dripping with malice and conceit. "I don't have to," he explained, "there have been people living happily there for over twenty years and we haven't encountered any monsters, hostile or otherwise."

He brushed past her but Rukia stepped in his way again.

"What do you mean? What people?"

"Terraformers. You could call them environmental engineers. They go over there and build atmosphere processors that turn the toxic air breathable, it usually takes decades. We call them 'shake 'n bake' colonies."

He made to leave again only to be barred by Rukia's arms.

"How many?" she pressed, "How many people are there?"

"I'm not sure. Perhaps around sixty or so families. Now really, do you mind?" He nodded towards the arm obstructing his passage.

Rukia moved aside and collapsed against the door, staring at nothing, jaw dropped in shock.

"60 families...Jesus..."

* * *

The winds raged on LV-426, something that terraforming couldn't fully quell. Nor could it really do anything about the near constant cloud cover, giving the surface minimal light at best. It was also quite dusty, too, requiring breathing masks whenever someone went outdoors. 85% of the time the winds raged.

Still, that didn't stop the people living there from thriving as much as they could, the Karakura Town facility lasting a good twenty years since its construction. The 267 people living there were diligent in their work, whether it be manning a switchboard or checking a set of grid coordinates off base.

Four of those people, a couple and their son and daughter, were part of the later, and were about to arrive at the place they were sent to check.

"They're taking too long!" the large man said, his baritone voice practically shaking the rover, "I knew we shouldn't have asked Control about this!"

"Dear," his petite wife chastised, pulling the collar of her coat over her mouth as another aging component in their vehicle blew out a puff of steam, "if we don't get conformation on this then we'll just get in trouble when- Luppi! Give Nelliel back her doll, stop bothering her. ...As I was saying, it's better to know now than get reprimanded later."

"I know that," the man said, scratching his prematurely white beard, "but do we really have to tell them we found anything if we don't hear back? I mean, we've been doing this for fifteen years now, don't we deserve more than just the salary Gotei 13 gives us?"

"And if we don't follow proper procedure, we might not even get that- Children!" The petite woman turned to face her two kids; a boy and a young girl, "What did I just say?"

"Luppi won't give me back Dodonchakka!" the little girl whined, trying to grab her doll.

"She said I could have it!" her brother protested, hiding the ratty plushie behind his back.

"I thaid you could have him if I could have Pethe!"

"It's _Peche_, you little tunnel newt!"

"MOM!"

"Oops, ___sorry!_"

Thankfully, before either child could come to violence, the radio came to life.

_"____Alpha Kilo 24 Niner, the inquiry about potential salvage you made has been processed. If you find anything you think is worth saving, it's yours by all rights.__"_

"Copy that, Control," the mother responded, "we'll contact you again once we've searched the grid. Over and out." She hung up the mic and turned to her husband, "See? now we won't have to worry about reprimand when we get back."

"Good thing, too," he said, staring straight out the front window, 'cause I think we just found the motherload!"


End file.
